Obama: A Legend in His Own Mind

WASHINGTON - Presidents are identified in the history books by
their accomplishments, if they have any.

Abraham Lincoln is remembered for saving the union and ending
slavery. Franklin D. Roosevelt crafted the New Deal in the Great
Depression and led the nation in World War II.

Barack Obama is still writing the last chapters of his
presidency, though there's a growing list of reasons why it may well
be known in the end as the "Me Presidency" that is all about him.

Someone recently dug up a number of examples where the White
House staff has been inserting Obama into the biographies of past
presidents as part of the White House historical narrative. Among them:

While Calvin Coolidge was the first chief executive to give a
public radio address, Obama is the first to be on LinkedIn. Really.

FDR presided over the enactment of Social Security, but Obama is
presiding over its preservation. How about its deepening insolvency?

This is a president who has an exalted view of himself and he
frequently reminds Americans of how truly great he sees himself. He's
fond of the pronoun "I" when describing his exploits and isn't shy
about comparing himself to our greatest presidents.

He told CBS's "60 Minutes", "I would put our legislative and
foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any
president -- with the possible exceptions of [Lyndon] Johnson, FDR,
and Lincoln -- just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern
history."

But Obama really reached for the stars by comparing his empty
record on tax reform to President Reagan's sweeping overhaul of the
tax code in 1986.

"In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code,
one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his
secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the
Buffett Rule," the White House misstated for the record.

But as Rory Cooper of the Heritage Foundation writes in an
excoriating piece he titles "President Me", this is "a complete
fabrication" of what President Reagan said and did on taxes.

Obama tried to wrap himself in Reagan's mantle in a speech about
his scheme to raise taxes on the rich, an idea he said he got from
Reagan himself.

"Some years ago one of my predecessors traveled across the
country pushing for the same concept... That wild-eyed, socialist, tax-
hiking class warrior was Ronald Reagan," Obama said on April 11.